Father’s day
About the time that high school started and the first of my adolescent identity crises turned me into a sullen, nobody-understands-me troglodyte, I lost contact with my dad. He’d moved back from Hawaii, but I figured that his standing as a good christian and pillar of the community didn’t fit with his fucked-up mess of a teenage son who wouldn’t shake hands with business associates. So, aside from some nasty business with lawyers, my mother, and a child support re-negotiation, we just kind of lost the thread and never picked it up again.
Last year, my dad got sick. Falling on a boat dock in Seattle, he broke his sternum, developed blood clots, and spent months in the hospital, getting worse and worse. Finally, after this bizarre turn of events, he was diagnosed with leukemia, fought bravely for awhile, but eventually died at home in Redmond, with both his new and old families by his side.
Since high school, I’ve decided that my pain and anger isn’t all my parents’ fault, but I never really found my dad again. I wish he’d tried harder to be my father when I needed him the most, but I know that he was a human being with his own blind spots and pain.
A week before he died, my dad told me that he forgave me. For what I never could tell, although I think it was for a few months that I didn’t go see him in the hospital. What I didn’t find the courage to say at the time was that I forgave him too.
I forgive you dad.
June 18th, 2006
June 20th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Oh Joe. Sigh.
I’m not quite there yet, what with the forgiveness and all. When I turned 18 I cut off all ties to my biological mother, who is _all_ blind spots and pain (to a dangerous degree). When I was pregnant with the little man I made a brief attempt to reconnect, basically telling her that she could see her grandchild if she sought the help of mental health professionals and finally got back on her meds. She opted not to. I haven’t seen her since 1999 now and I’m afraid that ours will be a similar fate.
June 20th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Sorry about your mom. It’s a strange and fucked up thing having a parent who chooses to not be in your life. I’m not a dad (yet), butI can’t imagine how you come to the moment when you turn on your own child and decide they’re not worth the pain or trouble. I guess some people just aren’t meant to be good parents, but we can’t fault them for own existence, right? :)
June 28th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Oh, wow! I never knew that I knew your dad. But checking in on your blog as I am wont to do every now and again, lurking in the halls of my favorite cultural narcissuses, I saw the picture in this post and instantly recognized him. I was sorry to hear about his passing, more sorry to hear of your tale, but now that I know let me welcome you to the intimate circle of men who have lost their fathers. It’s a big group, but somehow uniquely different and feels smaller than it’s actual size. The complexity is… well, complex. best,
ps.
June 29th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Thanks Phillip. Now that I think of it, it makes sense that you knew him.